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Making a building yellow by chromating it

I am looking for references to document the health aspects of handling and touching yellow chromated zinc sheet ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] to be used as front cover a building of 2000 m2 surface. The plan is to cover a new building with galvanized steel sheets that have a final layer of electroplated zinc passivated with yellow chromate to make the building "yellow" and nice looking.

We will evaluate health and environmental aspects in several situations:

- handling of the sheets during construction work
- touching the sheets when the building is completed and occupied by people
- pollution of rain water from the building surface
- polluted rain water to sewer or garden area

Flemming Dahl
Process and wastewater consultant - Lyngby, Denmark
2007

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2007

I am not in possession of all of the facts, so I am not challenging anyone's professional judgement on this issue. But with that disclaimer out of the way, the idea of obtaining a yellow color for a building by coating it with a toxic, carcinogenic, gel sounds like a terrible idea in principle :-)

Grafitti artists may soon learn that they can decorate the building with shiny metallic drawings simply by rubbing the yellow color off with erasers. The eraser shavings will have a high concentration of hexavalent chrome.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

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2007

I concur with Ted.

Why not use anodized aluminum dyed with ferric ammonium oxalate? This is non hazardous, the color is light fast, and the color is not too different from a yellow chromate.

Dave Wichern
Consultant - The Bronx, New York